Sam Houston: the victor of San Jacinto

Houston's military career turned on two battles. As a young officer under Andrew Jackson he was badly wounded at Horseshoe Bend in March 1814, during the Creek War. In March 1836 he took command of the Texian army at Gonzales just as news came of the fall of the Alamo, a siege he did not take part in, and six weeks later he won the Battle of San Jacinto.²

What was Sam Houston famous for?

Houston is famous above all for San Jacinto. On 21 April 1836 his outnumbered army surprised Santa Anna's camp, routed it and captured Santa Anna the next day, which ended the Texas Revolution. He then led the new Republic of Texas as president, and later stood out as a Southern senator and governor who opposed secession.³

A life on the frontier

Houston was born on 2 March 1793 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. After his father died, his mother took the family to Blount County in eastern Tennessee in 1807. As a teenager he ran away to live with a Cherokee band led by Oolooteka, who adopted him and gave him the name Colonneh, "the Raven".⁴

He enlisted in the US Army as a private in 1813 and soon became an officer. At Horseshoe Bend in March 1814, when Jackson defeated the Red Stick Creeks, he was badly wounded: three times, according to the Handbook of Texas, twice according to the Tennessee Encyclopedia. His courage brought him to Jackson's attention, and Jackson became his patron.⁵

With Jackson's support he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1823 and governor of Tennessee in 1827. In January 1829 he married Eliza Allen; the marriage ended within about eleven weeks, and neither of them ever explained why. In April 1829 he resigned and went west to live again among the Cherokee in Indian Territory.⁶

He drank heavily there, but also became a Cherokee citizen, married a Cherokee woman, Diana Rogers Gentry, and acted for the tribe in Washington. In late 1832 he crossed into Mexican Texas, settled at Nacogdoches and was soon drawn into the settlers' politics of rebellion against Mexico.⁷

San Jacinto

In November 1835 the Consultation made Houston major general of the Texas army. On 2 March 1836, his 43rd birthday, he was at Washington-on-the-Brazos when the convention adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence, and two days later it appointed him commander of all Texas forces.⁸

On the morning of 21 April, General Martín Perfecto de Cos brought about 500 reinforcements into Santa Anna's camp, and Houston ordered the scout Erastus "Deaf" Smith to destroy Vince's Bridge, cutting off further help and any retreat. At about 3:30 in the afternoon, screened by trees and rising ground, the Texian line advanced with its two cannon, the "Twin Sisters", crying "Remember the Alamo!"⁹

A musket ball shattered Houston's ankle during the attack. Santa Anna escaped the field, but on 22 April a search party found him and brought him into camp without at first knowing who he was.¹⁰

Houston's report says the close fighting lasted about 18 minutes, the figure the Handbook of Texas repeats; the Texas State Library says less than twenty minutes. The rout lasted much longer: Houston wrote that the pursuit continued until twilight, and the Texians kept killing fleeing Mexicans long after the battle had ended.¹¹

Why did Sam Houston retreat before San Jacinto?

Houston retreated because his army was small, poorly disciplined and shrinking, and he wanted to restore its fighting ability before risking battle. Falling back from Gonzales on 13 March 1836 gave him time to train recruits, and Santa Anna, pressing east, divided his forces into several columns and gave Houston his chance.¹²

The retreat was bitterly unpopular. After news of the Goliad disaster, many men left to help their families escape in the flight of settlers known as the Runaway Scrape, and Houston paused for some weeks to drill those who stayed. In mid-April, learning that Santa Anna had moved ahead with a smaller column, he turned to pursue him. The Texas State Library notes that historians still debate his strategy, and that some critics never forgave what they saw as cowardice.¹³

How many men fought at San Jacinto?

Houston's own copy of his report counts 783 Texians against more than 1,500 Mexicans; the Handbook of Texas gives 910 and about 1,200. All give 630 Mexicans killed and 730 captured. Houston's copy lists 2 Texians killed and 23 wounded, 6 mortally; the Handbook and the Texas State Library give 9 killed or mortally wounded and 30 wounded.¹⁴

The victory ended the war in practice. On 14 May 1836 Santa Anna, still a prisoner, signed the Treaties of Velasco, agreeing to end hostilities and withdraw the Mexican army beyond the Rio Grande. Neither government accepted them, and Mexico did not recognize Texas independence until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, after the United States had annexed Texas in 1845.¹⁵

What did Sam Houston do as president of Texas?

In September 1836 Houston defeated Stephen F. Austin by a wide margin to become the first elected president of the Republic of Texas, taking office on 22 October. He furloughed most of the unruly army, sought annexation by the United States, and in a second term, 1841 to 1844, avoided war with Mexico after two invasions in 1842.¹⁶

In April 1837 the government moved to the new town of Houston, named in his honor. The constitution barred a president from succeeding himself, so he left office in 1838 and returned in 1841. Annexation came at the end of 1845, and Houston became one of the new state's first two US senators.¹⁷

Why was Sam Houston removed as governor of Texas?

Houston was removed because he refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. Elected governor of Texas in 1859, he opposed secession and warned that civil war would bring a Northern victory. After Texas left the Union, the secession convention deposed him on 16 March 1861 when he would not swear the oath.¹⁸

As a senator from 1846 to 1859 he was a pro-Union Southerner: a slaveowner who defended slavery, yet opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The Texas legislature condemned him for it in 1855. He lost the race for governor in 1857 to Hardin R. Runnels and beat Runnels in 1859.¹⁹

How did Sam Houston die?

Sam Houston died of pneumonia on 26 July 1863, at the age of seventy. He died at the Steamboat House in Huntsville, Texas, which his family had rented after moving there in late 1862, and he was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Huntsville. His eldest son, Sam Jr., had been wounded at Shiloh.²⁰

How is Sam Houston remembered?

Houston is remembered in the name of the city of Houston and at the San Jacinto Battleground, preserved by the state, where the San Jacinto Monument rises 567 feet over the field. The Sam Houston Memorial Museum in Huntsville, run by Sam Houston State University, keeps the Steamboat House where he died.²¹

Beside Interstate 45 at Huntsville stands a 67-foot statue of Houston on a 10-foot granite base, by the sculptor David Adickes, completed in 1994. Houston was elected governor of two states, Tennessee in 1827 and Texas in 1859. The battle has its place in our guide to the greatest battles in American history.²²